Distorted Reflections
by leww
Summary: After losing the battle with Aizen, Ichigo finds himself in a world all too similar to his own. However, this new universe plays by different rules, and if he wants to survive, he has to play a dangerous game of lies and deceit. Bad link is fixed!
1. Trust No One

_Yay, another looong story. *dies*_

_So, I started rewatching Bleach, and I thought, 'Wow, I never noticed how lucky all these people are, 'cause no matter how badly they get hurt, none of the 'good guys' ever die.' Then I was forced to watch American Idol with my mom, and we saw (through our TV) the crowd watching the final four (through the giant TV thing in the middle) watch a Lady Gaga concert (through a TV). And this is what I got from it. Yeah, it made sense to me at one in the morning. Not so much now. _

_And without further to do, here's the prologue/confusing thing of how Ichigo once again makes everything worse than it already is!_

_(Note: If you were looking for the disclaimer, that's sad. Keyword: fanfiction.)_

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><p>It was dark. What had happened? He heard someone call his name in the distance, but the voices were fading fast and now nothing more than whispers. No matter how hard he fought, invisible hands continued to pull him down further and further into the black abyss below him.<p>

He felt like he was drowning. He gasped for breath and inhaled thick liquid into his lungs. He gagged and choked on the metallic taste of blood, clawing at his throat and gasping for precious air.

Oxygen filled his lungs and his chest stopped burning, and it was as if he had never struggled in the first place. The Senkaimon was in front of him in all its glowing glory and radiated a warmth that seemed so foreign in the surreal black surrounding him.

He was dreaming, he realized. Three months (an hour?) of training had exhausted him. He always had weird dreams when he got tired. Well, that and he was dead now.

The Senkaimon creaked open, and he lifted his arm to shield his eyes from the blinding light. He could barely make out an outline behind the annoying light, and it stepped out of the gate. The gate shattered behind it, and the pieces dispersed before the outline absorbed them. The person began glowing faintly, revealing their facial features.

"Hello, Kurosaki Ichigo," the dream-Yuzu said in a dead-pan voice with eyes that seemed for too pessimistic for his bright younger sister. "You have been chosen for this task."

"A... task?" he questioned. Usually, his dreams were a lot less... serious than this. Maybe it had to do with something he ate? Or maybe it was just a part of dying?

"Yes. I appologise for forcing this onto you. It will be a long and difficult road, but your efforts will not go unrewarded. If you complete this task, I will restore your shinigami powers to you."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, before a horrible thought crossed his mind. "Who are you? What have you done with my sister?"

"Kurosaki Yuzu is unharmed, and is currently with Kurosaki Isshin. I merely took her form in an effort to communicate better. It seems I have succeeded, as I have your full attention. I am what shinigami refer to as the Senkaimon."

"The Senkaimon..." he said. "N-no. Whatever you have planned for me, I refuse to have any part in it. I lost my powers, anyway. There's no way I could do anything for you, even if I wanted to."

"I shall restore your powers, and you will aid me. You have no choice in the matter. Be silent while I explain the terms of this task, Kurosaki Ichigo, for time is short and I do not wish for you to accidentally cause even more havoc than has already occurred.

"There are an infinite number of what I believe humans refer to as 'alternate dimensions'. All the choices you made, all of the paths you took, all of the lives lost and gained present an insurmountable number of these alternate dimensions. As the gate between the worlds, it is my duty to see that they are kept in balance with each other.

"The dimension you are familiar with is essentially the most ideal of them all. You were supposed to have defeated Aizen Sosuke in this battle. Centuries ago, something happened that made one dimension go terribly wrong, and I have let it be, hoping that it would sort itself out in due recompose. However, this did not happen, and has sent it spiraling into chaos, so much so that dimensions like your own have felt the effects." She stared evenly at him with dead eyes. "This is your task: use the knowledge of your 'ideal world' to fix another. I will restore all of your powers. Once your task is complete, I will send you back to your dimension and give you a second chance to defeat Aizen Sosuke. You both will be at the power level you should have been at, had the chaotic world not leaked into your own."

He bit his tongue, torn. There was something just not quite right about this situation. There was something off: he could feel it in his bones, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what bothered him so much. But despite that, this person with his sister's face that claimed to be the Senkaimon offered him something that he couldn't refuse: a chance to prevent the slaughter of everyone and everything he had ever cared about.

"I can see that you are torn," the Senkaimon said. "But you have no say in the matter. In your world, you are dead. You have nothing to return to there. If you complete your task, things will right themselves. It is as simple as that.

"I have little more to say, but time is short. People who you thought you knew are different than as you know them. Remember that your world is based on ideal circumstances, and use the knowledge of your previous life to fix the problems that you find as best you can. Beware of the people who your other self is familiar with, as they will seek out the person you never were."

The Senkaimon's eyes narrowed. "We are out of time. Trust no one but yourself, Kurosaki Ichigo."

He opened his mouth to say something—ask anything—but all at once he was plunging through the sea of blood again, choking on the thick substance that filled his lungs. He pushed himself up from the asphalt, spitting blood onto the street.

He stared at the sidewalk underneath him with an odd fascination. Everything was dark and still, the silence only broken by the soft hum of crickets. He rolled onto his back, making sure that he wouldn't accidentally land on his injured arm, and stared at the night sky. It was starless, but he still felt a strange nostalgia when he looked up at it.

He turned his head towards a sign in the corner of his eye, and his heart burst in his chest. He had seen the _Welcome to Karakura Town!_ sign many times over the years, but this was by far the happiest he had ever been to see it.

He was alive.

He could save everyone still.

He grinned at this as his eyes slid shut, his battered body finally winning over his mind. The last thing he saw was a pair of feet in the traditional shinigami standard-issue sandals, the owner's face being to blurry to make out, and the last thing he remembered was the Senkaimon's final warning:

Trust no one.


	2. Out of the Frying Pan

_I love weekends. I get to write a lot. Half a chapter plus proof-reading in one day. =) It's more of a transition chapter than anything else: don't want to introduce too many different things too fast. That might even confuse me..._

_Fortywinks420: I know. It's always: Yay! I'm in the past/alternate dimension! Now I get to make everything all happy and good!11!1 Not quite so much. It's gonna take a long time for Ichigo to earn 'back' his friends._

_**Edit**: Thanks to LadyDragonIchi for pointing out that broke my URL... so I'll fix it. Even I can't read it and it's my story... _

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><p>The world was brought back into focus all at once, and he sat up, ignoring the dull throbbing that started in his abdomen and worked its way up his left arm. What had happened? Where was he?<p>

The Senkaimon, he remembered. The Stupid Thing had sent him here to 'fix things', apparently. What exactly he was supposed to fix was beyond him: the Stupid Thing hadn't really given him much to work with besides that he had to 'use his knowledge' to 'make things right'. Or something along those lines.

He looked around the room he was in: it was a large storage room that looked like it doubled as a guest bedroom, as he was laying on a thick futon in the corner of the room. Boxes were piled up to the ceiling, and there was a path through the center to a door. The path was large enough that a person like Renji or himself could get through with little difficulty, while someone like Chad would have to stand sideways and force himself through.

Looking closer at the boxes, he saw that they were all types of candy: gum drops, lollipops, taffy, rocket poppers, mints, gummy bears and worms, jelly beans—probably any type of candy a person could think of was there. Yachiru would have a field day here.

All in all, it was one of the more 'normal' places he had woken up in. However, he still couldn't shake the feeling that there was something wrong.

Zangetsu, he realized, cursing himself at how he lowered his guard. Where was his zanpakuto? In the past few years, he had never let him out of his sight, and his absence aggravated his nerves.

He heard the door open, and prepared himself. He had no idea who was coming, and there was so much he was in the dark about and so many variables in the situation he had unwillingly been thrust into that he wasn't sure who to trust or how to determine friend from foe.

The door opened, and a timid girl with black hair peaked out from behind it. She made a startled noise when she saw that he was awake and shrank back slightly.

Who was this girl? She looked oddly familiar, but he couldn't seem to pinpoint exactly where he'd seen her before. He blinked with realization.

"Ururu..." he said, surprised to see her here. Her face brought back memories he had long since buried of people dying and being torn apart. It had been a long time since he had seen _any_ of Hat-n'-Clogs' group alive, for that matter.

She fled without a word, leaving him staring at the open door in awe. If she was alive, how many others were also? Even though his mind was telling him not to feel this way, he felt so hopeful that his heart could burst out of his chest at any given moment.

Ignoring the fire in his left side, he stood, leaning against the whitewashed wall behind him. He wasn't sure how stable the tall stacks of boxes were, and he didn't want to take a chance, lest they all came crashing down on top of him. After all the shit he'd survived through, it would just suck if he died in what he now assumed was Urahara's storage room under an obscene amount of candy. Besides, he didn't really feel like tempting fate today.

Forcing himself steady, he put one foot in front of the other, using the boxes as a guide while at the same time being careful not to put too much weight on them. He stumbled out of the door, chest heaving with the effort of the short walk. He slid down the wall, growling in frustration. Why in the world was he so damn weak? True, he had been mortally wounded, but he tended to recover quickly from his various brushes with death. Besides, couldn't the Senkaimon find it in her _busy_ schedule to heal him a bit?

His mind wandered. Could the Stupid Thing even heal? Probably not, now that he thought about it. And what gender was it, anyway? The pervert was probably a guy—it made his blood boil thinking about the fact that a guy would take the form of his little sister. Oh, whenever he saw the Stupid Thing again, he was going to give him/her/it a piece of his mind.

"You shouldn't be up, Carrot-Top," an oddly familiar voice said, and Ichigo looked up to see none other than Urahara Kisuke in all his hat-and-clogs glory.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked, the look in his eyes and the tone in his voice much different that what Ichigo had remembered—it was much tenser and less trusting. Then again, it had been so long, it seemed...

"Not really," he lied, trying to keep a straight face. If he had asked him a question like that, it meant he was expecting the answer he had given. He was still new to this world, and he didn't know what to say or how to act. If this had been Inoue or Rukia or, heck, even his stupid goat-bearded father, he might have approached them more warmly, but this was Urahara. Urahara was smart, manipulative, and extremely dangerous.

"You're lying," he said simply. It wasn't an accusation, simply a statement. "I remember you. Hueco Mundo, three months ago. With Jio Vega, right?"

"Huh?" he said dumbly, not quite sure what was going on. "What do you mean 'Jio Vega'? What kind of name is that? Is that a place or a person?"

Urahara's eyes shot up into his forehead. "Well, this is an interesting turn of events. Amnesia, possibly?"

His eyes widened: this was his chance. "You look kind of familiar. I don't know where I saw you from, though..."

"Do you know who _you_ are?" he asked, eyes narrowing.

"Um..." he paused for a moment as if contemplating something, eyes downcast, and shook his head. He silently prayed to whatever God there was that for once luck would be on his side.

Urahara sighed deeply. "You are quite the terrible liar, Kurosaki. But I'll play along with your little game for now. There's not much damage you can do without your zanpakuto, unfortunately for you."

No, he had rotten luck today, as usual. He swallowed thickly, dread building in the pit of his stomach. He panicked, looking back up at the man and saying, "What are you talking about? Aren't we allies?"

"Allies?" he repeated, looking as if he had just told him the answer to all of his problems were rocks and pie filling. His studied Ichigo's face, and seemed to ponder something for long moment. "What are you doing in the Material World?"

"Huh? I live here!" It was no use trying to lie to him, he realized. He just wouldn't tell the whole truth.

"Is that so?" he said, looking skeptical. "Well then, my little errand boy found you lying half-dead in an abandoned alleyway wearing a shinigami uniform. Care to explain that?"

He winced at the venom in the shopkeeper's voice. "I got into... a bad fight. I lost. And that's what I always wear. After all, I'm a substitute shinigami."

Urahara gave him a critical look before bursting out into laughter.

"A substitute shinigami, huh? You must have lost more blood than I thought, kid!" He wiped the tears out of his eyes. "Well, you're probably starving!"

As if to answer him, his stomach let out a long, angry-sounding growl.

"Come on, let's go eat lunch," the shopkeeper said, grabbing the collar of Ichigo's shirt and dragging him across the floor. "You can 'meet' the rest of my employees. Except for my errand boy: he's out. In fact, you probably won't be seeing him anytime soon."

As they turned a sharp corner, Ichigo realized three things:

One: The shop was a lot bigger than he thought it was. He didn't remember the run-down old place having any halls whatsoever. Renji would probably know better than him from his 'freeloader days', though.

Two: He felt as if he had just escaped out of the frying pan and into the fire. Alternate universe or not, Hat-'n-Clogs was a crazy scientist, and his only rival for insanity was probably Kurotsuchi, and he had had 'The Look' directed at him too many times not to know that he was now a part of one (or more) of his crazy plans.

And three: He still had that unshakable feeling that something, somewhere, was still terribly, horribly wrong.

* * *

><p>Dinner was an interesting affair, to say the least.<p>

Urahara was completely at home despite the new (and probably uninvited) guest at the table. Ururu was extremely timid, burying her face into her rice bowl and at the mercy of Jinta. Tessai kept giving him odd, serious looks, and had placed himself none-too-discreetly between Ichigo and the two children.

Ichigo sighed to himself, and he perked up slightly at the mention of Karakura Elementary School. "Hey, I didn't know you two went to school."

"Yeah, we do, what about it?" Jinta said, his chin jutting out in a condescending way.

"My sisters go to Karakura Elementary, too," he said, ignoring the looks of surprise from the two oldest members at the table. "Karin and Yuzu."

"You're Yuzu's brother?" Jinta exclaimed, his face turning the same color as his hair. "Yuzu never told me she had a shinigami brother!"

"Well, she doesn't really know, I guess," he said, rubbing the back of his head.

"Karin is nice," Ururu said quietly, lifting her face out of her bowl. "She saves me from bullies a lot, since I'm not supposed to hurt people who are alive."

Well, it hadn't stopped her from nearly killing him before, he remembered. When they had helped him restore his shinigami powers after Rukia's were taken away from him, one of the stages had involved the little black-haired girl chasing him around with the intent to kill him (or so he thought). He had been angry and annoyed at the time, but now he looked back on it fondly.

"Yeah, Karin's pretty tough," he said. "She's gonna be a real soccer star one day. She's amazing at it."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Urahara get up, and Tessai hesitated a moment before following him. He decided to ignore it for the moment.

"It's too bad that an athletic girl like Karin would waste all her efforts on something as pointless as soccer," Jinta sighed. "You just run up and down the field. Even a monkey could play soccer. Baseball is a true sport! It requires smarts _and_ strength!"

"Think whatever you want: just don't let Karin hear you."

"Yes, Karin would get angry at you," Ururu agreed. "Last time you said that, she punched you in the face."

"Only because I let her!" he argued.

"But you were crying afterward..."

"Shut up, Ururu!" he yelled, pulling on her bangs. "It was your imagination! Don't pretend things you imagined really happened!"

"Stop it, Jinta!" she wailed. "That hurts!"

He laughed again, happiness bubbling in his chest. The two kids had emptied their bowls, and more out of habit than anything else, he picked them up and took them to the sink.

"...He's dangerous, Kisuke."

He stopped mid-stride, recognizing the voice as Tessai's.

"I know that," the shopkeeper responded coolly. "But I have my theories."

"What about Jinta and Ururu? You're putting them in danger by keeping him here."

They were talking about him, Ichigo realized. He didn't know why the two of them thought that, since he hadn't given them any reason to be afraid of him... And then he remembered that his world's Urahara knew this world's Ichigo already. He wondered what kind of person he was to have the two exiles so edgy about his presence.

"I don't think they're in any danger, but I'm still cautious. After all, he's still..." The shopkeeper trailed off.

"What makes you so sure?"

"The look on his face... is human. I'm sure you noticed that. When I was in Hueco Mundo, Kurosaki had the face of a monster. And I have my theory—I want to make sure I'm right before we move forward." There was a long pause. "I believe we have an eavesdropper, Tessai. We'll continue our conversation later."

Biting his tongue, he emptied the dishes in the sink before going back into the kitchen. Ururu and Jinta were still arguing, but he ignored them, heading straight for the hallway. He heard a quiet "good night" from the black-haired girl, and he only nodded at her before brushing past.

He opened the door to the guest bedroom, his side on fire and his good mood ruined. He brushed past the tall stack of boxes before collapsing on the futon, energy spent.

"_He had the face of a monster."_

He groaned, rolling over to take pressure off of his injured side. He tried not to think about the implications of the conversation he had overheard. He couldn't just leave without Zangetsu if things got hairy: the shopkeeper had been right when he said that there wasn't much he could do without his zanpakuto, and even if he could, there was no way he could even comprehend the idea of just abandoning him.

"_He had the face of a monster."_

He shut his eyes, trying to drive unwanted thoughts out of his mind for the night. It took him a long time to fall asleep, surrounded by an unending wall of boxes of candy.


	3. More Questions Than Answers

_It's shorter than the last one but... just don't kill me, please?_

_Also, I just remembered the Bounts and Senna. I REALLY don't want to write them in, but I guess that if people want me to, I will. :) So send me your opinion._

_Don't kill me... I have most of the next chapter done (ish)._

_pookie: Thank you! I try to mak things realistic (ish)._

_LV: It's just before the Soul Society Arc._

_Fortywinks420: I can't answer that. (shifty eyes)_

_LadyDragonIchi: Fixed it!_

_LadyDragonIchi (again): Yay! It's interesting! I'll take interesting any day of the week!_

_Lizeth: Sorry, nothing really gets answered... it will next chapter, though! :)_

_HELLO I'M: Cool! Intense! And interesting!_

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><p>The world must be laughing at his misery, he thought as he lifted another box.<p>

Even though he hadn't seen the shopkeeper and his misfit crew alive in a long time (and no, he had _not_ missed them, thank you very much!), he was eager to get his zanpakuto back and figure out his first move. Whenever Hat-and-Clogs was involved, destruction followed in his wake, and he had enough on his plate at the moment and didn't really feel like getting dragged into another infiltration/war/training session/all of the above.

Urahara had decided that if he was well enough to eat and talk, he was well enough to do heavy labor even though he had come remarkably close to death and a good proportion of his abdomen missing. He wasn't about to correct him and say that he actually _did _die, since it wouldn't really do much to help get rid of the suspicion that he had earned for reasons he didn't quite understand. He was given an Urahara Shouten t-shirt and sent to organize the make-shift guest room into something resembling an actual bedroom and not a storage closest.

He was a substitute shinigami, not a miracle worker. But with the thought of getting Zangetsu back and (hopefully) being on his merry way soon was enough to make him bite back his retort.

A particularly heavy box landed on his foot, and he let out a long string of curses. He angrily kicked the box, and he heard a muffled crack from inside it, as if something fragile had broken. Curious, he looked at the side of it: instead of saying some type of candy, it was labeled _FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CAUTION_.

Whoops.

Who knew what kind of weird things Urahara kept in his shop. For all he knew, he could have just done anything from unleashing a demon from hell to breaking a pair of glasses.

Ichigo swallowed thickly before opening the box, and was relieved to find that he had only broken an old picture frame. It was covered in a thick layer of dust: it probably hadn't been touched in decades (if not longer) due to the disaster that was the 'guest room'. He brushed it off and stared at the picture of a vaguely familiar girl dressed in a brand new Shinigami Academy uniform. There was an old woman standing next to her, but he couldn't make out her face because of the water damage.

He knew her from somewhere, even though he couldn't put a place or a name to her face. Her name was... H-something. A lieutenant?

That was right. She had been Aizen's lieutenant before he defected,. Out of everyone, she had taken his betrayal the hardest, and she killed herself a little after the Winter War started. He still couldn't remember her name: she had only been mentioned once or twice to him, and they had never been introduced to each other. The only reason he even remembered anything about her was because Toshiro had been pretty broken up about it—the two had been raised together.

So, what was it doing in the Urahara Shouten, tucked away in a corner to be forgotten?

_Creeper_, was all Ichigo thought, and put it back in the box, not bothering to look through the rest of it. He didn't dwell on it for very long afterward, and it was soon forgotten.

Kon, he realized, was probably still in the Shouten, just biding his time and waiting for his chance. The plushie was very low on the list of Aizen's enemies to be eliminated, and the two of them had kept each other company in the lonely weeks at the end of the war. Even if he wasn't useful or powerful, as a Shinigami, Ichigo felt like he owed the Mod Soul something.

With that in mind, he lifted the box with a renewed vigor, grinning like an idiot and not really caring if anyone saw. Rukia, Renji, Inoue, Chad, Ishida, the Shinigami in the Seireitei, Viazards, even Urahara's band of misfits—he had his second chance to save everyone from Aizen. And he wouldn't fail this time, no matter what it took.

"What are you so happy for?"

Urahara surprised him with his sudden entrance, and he dropped the same box on his same foot. He made a growling noise in the back of his throat.

"A little clumsy today, aren't we?" he said, slightly amused. Then, he looked the most serious that

Ichigo had seen him since the day that everything had gone sour. "Our chat is long since due."

"Yeah," he agreed, and followed the man out of the room, ignoring the pain in his foot. He'd survived much worse, no pun intended.

They sat down in their dinning room/kitchen, and his heart pounded in his chest as he waited for the older man to begin.

"I have my theories," he started. "On the fundamentals of time travel."

He hadn't even spent two days in this world and he was already found out. It was probably his biggest failure since the first time he 'fought' Byakuya. 'Fought' was used extremely loosely in this case.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, fighting to keep his voice even.

"You're a horrible liar. As I was saying, I have my theories, but none of them seem to fit quite right with your case." He titled his hat so that it covered his eyes. "I won't question you being here. But don't take it the wrong way. I don't trust you at all."

He had a feeling that there was more that he wanted to say, but he stopped himself and cleared his throat.

"Your zanpakuto is here," the man said, passing a sword over the table.

Ichigo stared at it for a moment, almost wanting to laugh at the shopkeeper. He had handed him a completely normal, unrealeased zanpakuto that looked similar to an asauchi, purple hilt and all. But when he took it, he felt Zangetsu's familiar power flow into him, and for the first time he noticed how a faint pattern of a spiraling sun was engraved in the guard.

Interesting.

"Erm... thanks," he said awkwardly, not really sure what to think of the latest development in his confusing life.

"I assume you don't know about what's going on in the Soul Society," he said. "Considering."

"Yeah," he answered, even though he wasn't quite sure what it was, exactly, that he was considering.

"A few days ago, one of the captains was killed by an unseated officer."

"What?" he choked out, the man dragging his thoughts away from his zanpakuto. "Who? How?"

"The victim was the captain of the Tenth Division," he said, looking back up at Ichigo.

Toshiro was dead? Killed by an unseated officer? It didn't make any sense. "Something doesn't seem right about that," he said, gaining courage. Urahara nodded.

"I agree, considering who the murderer was."

"Who?"

"A member of the Thirteenth, Kuchiki Rukia."

He was shocked. Rukia had murdered Toshiro? He'd figured that there would be some differences in the 'alternate dimensions' or whatever they were called, but nothing that earth-shattering had even crossed his mind. They weren't exactly best friends, but they seemed to get along with each other alright.

"He was found by his lieutenant near the center of the Seireitei, pinned to a wall with his own zanpakuto."

Wait, that sounded familiar. Wasn't that how Aizen was found by his own lieutenant, what's-her-name? There was definately something not right about this entire thing.

"Do you know anything about this?" Urahara asked.

"Not really. I mean, why would I? I don't really have anything to do with this..."

_Yet_, was all he thought.

He sighed deeply. "Well, I guess we should start from the beginning then, since you're going to be difficult. Hey, _Shiro-chan_, get in here! You probably know more about the situation in the Seireitei than I do!"

* * *

><p><em>...Don't kill me.<em>

_Personally, I'm kinda curious about people's theories on all the different things going on. So, if you're going to review anyway, here are some things I'm curious about:_

_A: Why does Urahara have a picture of Momo in his storage room? (creeper... just kidding; not the real reason, I promise)_

_B: Why did Urahara give Ichigo his zanpakuto when he doesn't trust him? And why is Zangetsu in his sealed form?_

_C: Why did Rukia 'kill' the Tenth Division captain?_


End file.
